"Children are a heritage from the Lord, offspring a reward from him. Like arrows in the hands of a warrior are children born in one's youth. Blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them. They will not be put to shame when they contend with the opponents in court.” Psalm 127:4-5
To say that parenting is challenging may be one of the greatest understatements in the history of the world.
Although there are thousands upon thousands of parenting books, blogs and conferences, the reality is there is not a “one size fits all” solution to parenting.
God has uniquely made every child and every family.
As a father of five kids I have quickly come to realize what works well with one kid may not work at all with another. However, my wife Neely and I have found that although our kids are incredibly different and the methods we use for each child may differ, the principles of Scripture that guide us each day never change.
One consistent truth that can be found in the Bible is that children are a gift and reward from God.
Psalm 127 compares children to arrows in the hand of a warrior.
Anyone going into battle with a bowstring would be grateful to have a quiver full of arrows. In the same way, parents with a house full of children are indeed blessed by the Lord. However, culturally today two parenting realities have become prevalent in the United States:
- Children have moved from being viewed as an amazing gift from God and instead have become viewed as a burden.
- Children have become the “center of the universe” that parents lives have begun to orbit around.
As Christian parents we must navigate the waters of gratitude for the amazing blessing that children are and be wary of foolishly orienting our world to revolve around our children.
The balancing act we parents must face is convincing our children:
John Eldridge, In Love and War
1. You are loved more than you can imagine.
2. The world does not revolve around you.
As we launch Life+ Christian Parenting we aim to change the narrative on parenting as a whole but especially within Christian families.
I cannot recount how many times I have heard someone talk about the statistics regarding how many Christian kids leave the Christian faith when they go to college. For far too many Christian parents the goal seems to be to passively hope that their children can hold on to enough of the faith they have been given to not leave it when they leave the house. This is a sad but true reality.
However, you won’t find this passive view of parenting presented anywhere in Scripture. Again, Psalm 27 describes children as arrows in the hand of a warrior.
Parents are never to be passive, they are always to be active. We as parents are to be warriors for the Lord sending out our arrows to impact the world.
When experienced bow hunters shoot an arrow at an animal, they are not shooting aimlessly hoping it might hit the animal. They are shooting the arrow purposefully with a target in mind and full expectation that the arrow will accomplish its purpose.
In the same way, we should be preparing our children to go out and accomplish the purpose God has set before them. It is time to move away from passive parenting that hopes our kids hang on to some of the truths we have taught them. We must press into lives of absolute devotion to God and intentional parenting that prepares our students to go out and live lives of impact.
Our greatest fear should not be failure but of succeeding at things in life that don’t really matter.
Francis Chan
May we as parents come together and realize our greatest success or failure in life will be our children. Jobs, homes, cars, reputation—worldly success should never be the goal. The goal must always be to prepare our children to impact the world for Christ. We must be warriors sending our arrows out into the world. Our children are the greatest legacy we will leave in this world. May this series be an opportunity for parents to unite and train up another generation of warriors.
In Christ,
Doug Langhals
HHCA Head of School
HHCA Life+ 
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